As demand for improved communication systems continues to increase so too will the demand for systems and components for reducing channel loss along a dispersive communications channel. Typical communications systems include a data source (i.e., transmitter), a communications channel, and a data destination (i.e., receiver). Factors such as inter-symbol interference (ISI) along a dispersive communications channel may lead to the degradation of signal quality at the receiver of the communications system. Dispersive channels with ISI are encountered in many signal processing and communication applications. For example, one such application may include a high speed serial link between a data source and a data destination. These links may be utilized to transfer voice, data and video via lossy communication channels. Lossy communication channels include, but are not limited to, coaxial cable, network back-planes, optical fibres and the like. Data transferred along a lossy may be transferred at ultra-high speeds (e.g., speeds as high as high as 40 Giga Bits Per Seconds (Gbps)).
In a high speed communication link between transmitting and receiving integrated circuit (IC) chips, SerDes (Serializer De-Serializer) cores serialize blocks of parallel data from the transmitting chip, transmit the serialized data over a communication channel and then de-serialize the received data into parallel data suitable for the receiving chip. Due to limited bandwidth of the communication channel, inter-symbol interference is present along the communication channel, which acts to degrade the quality of the signal received by the receiver. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a method and system suitable for mitigating the impact of the channel loss that occurs along the communications channel.